Vietnam War Resisters in Canada

A Guide to Web Sites

This web site complements an offline annotated bibliography project underway since January 2000. A September 2014 major revision reorganizes the material and verifies all links. The previous version (with no updating or further maintenance) will remain available as an archive file. (For that link, see the last item listed below.) Because of the increasing volume of internet-accessible material, preference tends to be given to items not available in print format. More emphasis is being placed on complementarity. Much of this listing forms the internet resources component of the larger bibliographic project. Special preference is given to personal recollections. Selected entries are listed in order of assessed relevance, interest, significance, extent of content, currency, etc. Each entry is assigned one or more controlled-terminology tags to describe content. This means that the web browser search function can be used to access particular desired content. Items marked “[Internet Archive]” are no longer found at their original web site and for this reason may be assigned a lower position in the order of the listing.

Historical Notes on Vietnam War Resisters in Canada / Joseph JonesNo. 1: The Numbers for U.S. Draft Resisters and Deserters Who Moved to Canada No. 2: Canadian Immigration Policy 1966-1974 and the Arrival of U.S. Vietnam War Resisters No. 3: Pierre Trudeau’s Views on U.S. Vietnam War Resisters No. 4: Iraq War Deserters Seek “Refuge” in Canada Added: Sept 2014 Tags: history

The Salvation Army Tales / Nancy NaglinAfter 45 years, a 1972 novel set in a Vancouver house filled with draft dodgers and deserters sees publication. Writing from direct experience of the situation, Naglin has realized her chief aim with uncanny ability: “to epitomize the most hopeless and frustrating aspects of exile.” Added: Aug 2017 Tags: fiction | Vancouver | women

The Virtual Vietnam ArchiveThis massive “donation-driven archive” aims to “collect and present all sides and viewpoints of the era.” Scope: “Types of material include documents, photographs, slides, negatives, oral histories, artifacts, moving images, sound recordings, maps, and collection finding aids. All non-copyrighted and digitized materials are available for users to download.“ One example of available material is a scan of the November 1966 version of Immigration to Canada and Its Relation to the Draft published by Vancouver Committee to Aid American War Objectors. Another is an extensive 2001 interview with John Swalby, who deserted to Canada in 1968. Sophisticated searching ability will prove an asset to the user. Added: Sept 2014 Tags: archive

Our Way Home: Peace Event & ReunionOn 4-8 July 2007 Vietnam War Resisters in Canada met together for the second year in a row. The program included 12 presentations in two session titled A New Generation of Research on Vietnam War Resisters in Canada. Added: Sept 2014 Tags: conference | event

Better Lands and a Perfect Home: Americans in Canada / Mary MurphyThis 112-page item (April 1989) with bibliography of 38 sources is written by an American woman who immigrated to Canada in 1972. Part II The Vietnam Era (p. 36-56) reviews and questions previous studies of that period’s U.S. immigrants. Part III (p. 58-97) reports on a study of 40 persons in the Sointula/northern Vancouver Island area. All were surveyed July 1987 to March 1989 by questionnaire, and 27 supplemented with interviews. [Internet Archive] Added: Sept 2014 Tags: research paper | women

How to Banish a Citizen: a Two-Step Transaction / EricStatistics 2000-2014 on visa ineligibilities for “people who departed from or remained outside the U.S. to avoid or evade military training or service”; Vietnam War emigrants and the case of Thomas Glenn Jolley; recission of entry ban under 1977 Carter pardon. Added: July 2015 Tags: blog entry | history

Draft-Age Americans in CanadaA section from Forging our Legacy: Canadian Citizenship and Immigration, 1900-1977, a book by Valerie Knowles commissioned by the federal department. The 1970 photograph of the Montreal American Deserters Committee can also be found in: Spencer, William, “Why they won’t fight,” Weekend magazine 20:6 (Feb. 7, 1970) 2. There the individuals are identified as: Larry Svirchev, Jim Weeks, Paul Petri, Steve Argo, John Nichols (left to right). Special Note: The above link became a matter of controversy in 2009 because the material was removed from the Government of Canada web site (possibly reflecting a current Canadian government attitude toward Iraq War deserters in Canada). On 4 July 2009 Sue Bailey of Canadian Press reported on Ken Marciniec’s access to information attempts to discover why the information disappeared. The link now works again. Added: Sept 2014 Tags: history

Thomas JolleyArticle from Wikipedia about the case of a stateless (motivated by Vietnam War resistance) citizenship renouncer, who returned to the United States. Added: Jan 2015 Tags: biography | encyclopedia

The Vietnam LotteriesThe Selective Service System describes the draft lotteries and list the results for seven lotteries held 1970-1976 for men born 1944-1956. Added: Sept 2014 Tags: document

Hell No We Won’t GoFacebook promotion site for 2013 television documentary. Added: Sept 2014 Tags: documentary film

Edward I. KochTranscript from Notable New Yorkers produced by Oral History Research Office, Columbia University Libraries. Former Congressman Koch discusses his December 1969 visit to Canada to talk with draft resisters (pages 529-532). Added: Sept 2014 Tags: memoir

Television News Archive, Vanderbilt University“The world’s most extensive and complete archive of television news” includes ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news programs since August 5, 1968. A database provides access through abstracts for each story. Records include interviews with American exiles in Canada. Added: Sept 2014 Tags: archive | video

Frank H. Epp 1929-1986An entry from the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Editor of I Would Like to Dodge the Draft Dodgers, But … (1970) — the first book published on the subject of American Vietnam War resisters in Canada. Added: Sept 2014 Tags: biography | encyclopedia

Keith Maillard: A Self PortraitNovelist Keith Maillard offers three paragraphs about his Vietnam War-motivated immigration to Canada from the United States. Added: Jan 2015 Tags: biography

joenickell.comJoe Nickell resided in Canada 1968-1977 as a war resister exile. Brief illustrated accounts are provided under the headings War Resister and Anti-War Activist and Federal Fugitive under the Personas tab. Added: Sept 2014 Tags: biography

About Roger HollanderRoger Hollander outlines a personal history that includes Resistance abandonment of CO assignment, period in Canada, Ford clemency, and 1976 return to Canada. Added: Jan 2015 Tags: biography

Sir! No Sir!Film: The web site related to this documentary on the GI resistance to the Vietnam War was closed. However, displacedfilms.com still has information about the film. Tags: archive | documentary film

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Toward an honest commemoration of the American War in Vietnam

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The Full Disclosure campaign is a Veterans For Peace effort to speak truth to power and keep alive the antiwar perspective on the American war in Viet Nam — which is now approaching a series of 50th anniversary events. It represents a clear alternative to the Pentagon’s current efforts to sanitize and mythologize the Vietnam war and to thereby legitimize further unnecessary and destructive wars.

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50 Years of Resistance In & Out Of Uniform

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Philip Jones Griffiths’ Viet Nam

This Month in History: 1969

February First trial of draft resistors known as the Buffalo 9. Around 150 University of Buffalo students and faculty picket the U.S. Courthouse, chanting “Free the Nine — The Trial’s a Crime”. Defendants argue that it was necessary to resist an “immoral, illegal, racist, politically insane war on the Vietnamese people.” Charges include assaulting federal officers, as well as draft evasion. The jury is unable to reach a verdict on several of the defendants but Bruce Beyer is convicted and receives a three-year sentence. Beyer later goes to Canada and then Sweden to help organize fellow resistors and deserters.

February Fort Gordon – Pfc. Dennis Davis editor of (the antiwar newspaper) Last Harass) is given an undesirable discharge.

February 14 The first three of 27 Gls charged with mutiny at the Presidio are found guilty and sentenced to 14, 15, and 16 years at hard labor by a court martial at the San Francisco Presidio stockade (see entry for October 14, 1968). By this time, three of those charged (Blake, Mather, and Pawlowski) had escaped to Canada. On appeal, the long sentences for mutiny were voided by the Court of Military Review in June 1970, and reduced to short sentences for willful disobedience of a superior officer. Rowland, for example, was released in 1970 after a year and a half imprisonment. See The Unlawful Concert by Fred Gardner for a fuller description of the case, as well as entry for October 14, 1968.

February 20 Tacoma – the Shelter Half coffee house’s business license is revoked. See October 1968 entry.

February 22-23 NLF attack 110 targets throughout South Vietnam, including Saigon.

February 25 36 U.S. Marines are killed by NVA (PAVN or VPA) who raid their base camp near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

2016 National Book Award Finalist, Viet Thanh Nguyen:

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory . . . . Memory is haunted, not just by ghostly others but by the horrors we have done, seen, and condoned, or by the unspeakable things from which we have profited.”